In high-end arena (field, pitch or stadium) lighting, like the Philips ArenaVision products, a large number of luminaires are distributed around an arena or stadium to create a uniform light intensity on the field or pitch, for example a football field. Currently the lamps offered to customers are ballasted (usually simple EM ballasts) high intensity discharge (eHID) high power lamps (with a power level of 2000 Watts) which are not able to dim fast and as such are unsuitable for producing dynamic effects.
However it has been discussed that other light technologies such as LED luminaires and drivers could be employed which would be suitable to be controlled to produce dynamic effects. From theatre shows it is well known that dynamic light effects can contribute significantly to the impact of the show. People become excited and experience a more intense atmosphere compared to a situation where only static lighting is used.
Controlling lighting systems in theatres is typically performed by the use of a light controller or console outputting a suitable lighting control protocol to the light controllers associated with the lights. For example DMX (also known as DMX512 or Digital multiplex) is a lighting controls standard which is mainly used in theatre and concert lighting systems. It offers control of 256 dim levels for up to 512 lamps, updated 44 times per second or faster. DMX defines many types of light fixtures, from simple 8-bit dimmed white lamps to RGB moving head lights with strobo's and gobo's. Remote Device Management or RDM is a protocol enhancement to DMX that allows bi-directional communication between a lighting or system controller and attached RDM compliant devices over a standard DMX line. RDM allows configuration, status monitoring, and management of these devices in such a way that does not disturb the normal operation of standard DMX devices that do not recognize the RDM protocol. Art-Net is a protocol for transmitting the lighting control protocol DMX (and with RDM) over the User Datagram Protocol of the Internet Protocol suite. In other words Art-Net is an Ethernet/IP version of DMX, in which multiple DMX universes can be controlled over a standard Ethernet network.
Creating (dynamic) scenes with a light controller (console) is a complex and time consuming job. This is significantly more complex and time consuming when attempting to generate scenes using arena or stadium lighting. When arena or pitch lighting is offered to an event controller as a series of DMX addresses operating hundreds of static lights, a light operator will have to do extensive training and programming on the light console before effective and impressive dynamic effects can be generated. In light systems involving a multitude of independent light fixtures, it is therefore generally impossible to offer use of such light system to a temporary user. The effort to interface such a light system to the temporary user is generally too high. As an example, the building lighting systems of venues hosting a visiting/travelling concert are generally not used by the lighting operator of the concert due to the high effort of interfacing the light fixtures to the light console of the concert.
To overcome such difficulty a separate lighting system, such as an underground/floor lighting dedicated to provide dynamic lighting effects has been discussed. For example U.S. Pat. No. 8,308,332 discloses a system for illuminating a sports field covered with turf, including a plurality of light arrays configured to be positioned in a spaced-apart manner under a portion of the turf and oriented to emit light upwards through the turf and a control system for selectively controlling activation of the light arrays to provide illuminated markers on the sports field. However the implementation of separate lighting systems for effects and illumination is costly both in terms of power consumption, control and installation/maintenance disruption.
US 2005/0275626 A1 discloses methods and systems for providing audio/visual control systems that also control lighting systems, including for advanced control of lighting effects in real time by Video Jockeys and similar professionals.